Mayor Edwin M. Lee and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission today announced the appointment of Harlan L. Kelly, Jr. as the new General Manager for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) to replace retiring General Manager and former City Controller Ed Harrington.

“After a long and exhaustive nationwide search, I am proud to join the SFPUC in selecting Harlan Kelly as the next SFPUC General Manager,” said Mayor Lee. “Harlan has shown tremendous commitment and leadership at the SFPUC as Assistant General Manager and in his role in delivering our City’s most vital capital improvement programs, which collectively, are delivering our City’s water, sewer and power to the region. I know that Harlan will continue the good work of Ed Harrington who has left a lasting impact not just at SFPUC, but on our entire City.”

“Harlan exemplifies the type of leadership and vision that will lead our agency into the future,” said SFPUC Commission President Anson Moran. “His commitment to professionalism and integrity, coupled with an innovative approach to management, has helped us keep faith with our ratepayers and succeed in seismically upgrading our historic Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System in addition to delivering other quality infrastructure programs. He is also a staunch advocate for making sure that the diverse communities in our City get access to jobs and training opportunities available at the SFPUC.”

Kelly’s civil engineering career spans nearly three decades beginning as a Student Trainee and including his tenure as San Francisco’s City Engineer. At the San Francisco Department of Public Works, he also held project management positions, including Acting Director and Deputy Director of Engineering, when he directed complex capital improvement programs that included the rebuild and seismic retrofit of City Hall, Kezar Stadium, and expansions of convention, hospital, county jail, and public arts facilities. For the upgrade of the Hetch Hetchy water system, he implemented a cloud-based system to streamline and coordinate projects and enhance financial transparency and accountability, saving the City time and money.

For the past nine years, Kelly has served as the SFPUC Assistant General Manager for Infrastructure and has overseen the historic $4.6 billion voter-approved seismic upgrade of the Hetch Hetchy Water System and is currently leading the development of the upcoming multi-billion Sewer System Improvement Program. Kelly helped deliver the recently opened $191 million SFPUC 525 Golden Gate Avenue Headquarters, one of the few municipal buildings in the world built to LEED Platinum standards and one of the greenest buildings in North America. The building is projected to save ratepayers $3.7 billion over the building’s lifespan thanks to a combination of rental efficiencies, asset ownership, and environmentally sustainable building design.

Kelly has also shown a strong commitment to empowering San Francisco communities. In 1995, he started Project Pull, a summer internship program that places diverse students from throughout San Francisco with an interest in engineering, architecture, sciences, business and law into City departments for a summer. After 17 years, Project Pull is now the longest-running youth program of its kind in San Francisco. In 2012, he was honored for this work and received the Local Hero Award for Community Service from KQED and Heroes and Hearts Award from the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation.

Kelly is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and a licensed professional engineer.